


Four Festive Ficlets

by flailingmuse



Series: All Fun & Games 'Verse [2]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Fluff, M/M, brief and quickly resolved peril, loki loves his foolish mortal, tony is an impulsive idiot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 16:40:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13170954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flailingmuse/pseuds/flailingmuse
Summary: A collection of vaguely festive ficlets starring our favourite disaster duo. All of these can be considered to live in the All Fun & Games ‘verse, set after the main story. All are based loosely around things from a list of Christmas-themed prompts I had saved in my frostiron tag on Tumblr.





	Four Festive Ficlets

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so let's pretend I don't still have five chapters left to write of All Fun & Games, and just enjoy the Christmas fluff that the season inspired me to write. These fics are also kind of a lead up to a Jotun-form reveal fic that I'm working on for when All Fun & Games is done

**Part the First**

_Prompt: “I live below you and I was minding my own business watching the snowfall out the window WHEN I SAW A BODY FALL ARE YOU REALLY PUTTING UP CHRISTMAS LIGHTS NOW”_

Loki had gone up to the penthouse in the hopes that he would find Stark there. He had already tried the workshop, the training rooms, the kitchen and all the communal areas, and not a trace of the mortal could he find. He stepped out of the elevator and glanced around. Still no sign of Stark.

He huffed and went over to the bar to pour himself a drink. Glass in hand, he took a sip, sighed, and wandered to the window. Snow was falling ever faster outside, clothing the city in a blanket of white. Loki was standing there, sipping at his drink and watching the swirling flakes, wondering if perhaps Stark had fallen down an elevator shaft and died, when the body fell past the window.

He started, then pressed close to the window to look down. What he saw was familiar gold and red armour, rising rapidly towards him. Loki blinked. Stark waved.

“What on earth are you doing?” Loki called through the glass. In answer, Stark raised his other hand, revealing a long tangle of tiny lights on strings of dangling cable “Are you _decorating_?” Loki stared at him in disbelief, wishing he’d poured a larger drink.

He couldn’t see through the face-plate, but he knew Stark well enough by now to know he would be grinning like the fool he was. With a jaunty salute, Stark flared the jets on his boots and swept away, fire vanishing into whiteness, trailing lights behind him. Loki closed his eyes for a moment, then downed the last of his drink, and transported himself to the landing platform on the roof.

The cold barely touched him, though the icy fingers had tendrils of paranoia crawling up his spine, and he had to stop himself from checking his hands for a blue tinge. He walked to the edge of the roof and stared out into the white, searching.

“Stark!” he shouted, voice swallowed up into the wind. “Stark, you idiot excuse for a mortal!”

The wind and the howling snow covered the sound of his arrival. He was suddenly there, still trailing decorative lights, boot jets flaring to keep him in place.

“What’s up, Reindeer Games?” he called down. “You wanna help?”

“What in all the realms do you think you’re doing?” Loki shouted back.

“It’s Christmas!” Tony said, as if that explained anything. “I’m decorating the tower!”

“In the middle of a snowstorm?” Loki knew the man had questionable survival instincts, but there had to be limits.

“It’s not that bad,” Tony argued. A gust of wind howled between them and he spent the next few minutes fighting to get level again, tangling lights around himself in the process. “Alright, maybe you have a point.”

Loki stepped aside as he landed, and watched with some amusement as Tony struggled to untangle himself from the lights. Finally free, he walked slowly back into the tower, starting to shiver the moment the first piece of armour was pulled away. Loki hurried to keep pace with him, drawing him into an embrace the moment he was free of the suit and back in the penthouse.

“You are a fool, Tony Stark,” Loki said as Tony buried his cold face in his shoulder.

“But I’m your fool,” he mumbled, and Loki chuckled.

“Indeed you are,” he tilted Tony’s head up and bent to kiss him. “Now come, my reckless, handsome fool. I believe I know a way to warm you back up.”

 

\----------------

 

**Part the Second**

_Prompt: PULLING YOU IN FOR A KISS WITH A SCARF_

Tony had decided that this year, he loved winter. He was never sure whether he was going to each time it came around, but this year it turned out that he did. Less than a week into December he had decorated the tower, inside and out, with help both willing and unwilling from its occupants. He had acquired a whole new winter wardrobe that six separate fashion blogs had declared _‘iconic’_ , and had a collection of scarves that had probably required two whole flocks of sheep to create.

And now, with the previous days snowstorm having subsided, he was going to go out and walk around in the snow in his fancy-ass coat, his fancy-ass boots and his fancy-ass scarf and enjoy the indulgence. And if he had his way, he was taking Loki with him. Not that he was going to risk doing anything too scandalous out in public, like hold hands with the supervillain-turned-tentative-avenger, no, nothing so dangerous. He was just going to enjoy his company while they both turned heads by being, in all modesty, the hottest fucking couple in town.

That was the plan, at least.

“I don’t know why you enjoy this,” Loki said the moment they were out of the door. The cold didn’t seem to bother him the way it did other people. He had a coat on mostly for show – long, black, sinfully well-tailored – and a scarf at Tony’s insistence, because he’d acquired one in just the right shade of green and he wasn’t about to let it go to waste. He shoved his hands into his pockets as they strolled through the snow.

“Tis the season,” Tony said, winking at the raised phone of the two boys who had nudged each other and whispered as they passed. They both turned bright red and scurried away. “I’m getting in the festive spirit.” He whistled a few bars of _Jingle Bells_ and nudged Loki playfully in the ribs.

“Forgive me if I don’t share the sentiment,” Loki said dryly. “So far I have not seen much in these festivities of yours to entertain me much. I far preferred your Halloween.”

“You would,” Tony rolled his eyes. “But c’mon, Sulky the Green-Eyed Reindeer. Look around!” He gestured. “Decorations! Peppermint flavoured everything! Over indulgent capitalist gift-giving of the most _obscene_ variety!” he swept a hand through the snow on the hood of a parked car and tossed it over Loki’s head. “Snow!”

Loki flinched at the snow, and hurried to brush it out of his hair.

“The only part of that I enjoy is the peppermint. The rest you can keep,” he smoothed his hair down, a small flicker of magic restoring it to its full perfection. “ _Especially_ the snow.”

“You’re a mean one, Mr Grinch,” Tony said, then laughed at the confused eyebrow Loki raised at him. “Forget it. Go once around the block with me and then I promise you can teleport back to your climate-controlled room and prance around naked with the heating on full blast.”

Loki smirked.

“I shall do just that, if you also promise to join me in said nudity.”

He said it just loud enough for the cluster of girls they were passing to hear, and Tony didn’t miss the way they gasped, grinned at each other, and started frantically typing into their phones.

“Sometimes I hate the connected age we’ve entered,” he muttered. “You can bet that one will be all over Twitter by lunchtime.”

“That bothers you?” Loki asked, stopping in the middle of the street and nearly causing the pedestrian equivalent of a twenty-car pileup. Tony grabbed his sleeve and pulled him out of the main flow of traffic, up by the wall of a store behind them.

“What bothers me?” he said.

“The people of your world knowing of your…affection for me. It bothers you. Yet it does not bother you that your teammates know.”

Tony glanced away, conscious of every person passing and staring at them.

“No…Yes. I don’t know! It…I just…it’s complicated.” He finished lamely.

“In which case, I shall leave you,” Loki said. “I would hate to be a _complication_.” He said it with a sneer but Tony caught the flash of hurt that crossed his face. Tony grabbed the ends of his scarf.

“Don’t you dare teleport out on me and cause a scene,” he said. Loki stared down at him in silence, and Tony bit his lip. He glanced briefly to either side – there were people staring, of course there were. And there always would be, he realised in a flash. Loki or no Loki, people would always stare. He didn’t have the kind of life that could ever be uncomplicated.

“Oh, fuck it,” he muttered. He tightened his grip on the ends of Loki’s scarf.

“What are you-” was all Loki managed to get out before Tony had pulled on the scarf, dragging him close, and kissed him, hard and clumsy. Loki’s hands clasped his shoulders and Tony kept their mouths together for as long as he could. When he broke away it was with a gasp, and to the predictable flash of cameras. He ignored them as he stared Loki dead in the eyes.

“I’m gonna break the internet this Christmas,” he said, which had Loki grinning in a way that made his knees weak. Then he yanked on the scarf again and kissed him and kissed him and kissed him, and later that night he made a point of re-tweeting every single photo of it that he could find. And if he saved a couple of the better ones for himself well…he’d earned an early Christmas present.

 

\----------------

 

**Part the Third**

_Prompt: “there’s a storm and omg I’m losing signal are you okay?? hold on let me drive 489432 miles to get you the night before Christmas”_

“You let him go _alone_?” Loki didn’t shout. He kept his voice low and steady and channelled all his anger into the glare with which he now fixed the three Avengers facing him. Two of the three looked anywhere but him – it was only Natasha who held his gaze with a steel-backed one of her own.

“One, no-one _lets_ Stark do anything,” she said, arms folded. “And two, it was a simple mission. One medium-sized menace crawling out of the ocean. By all accounts, not any bigger than a bus. Easy enough for one of us to take care of, especially when the one is wearing custom armour equipped with rockets.”

“And you only thought to inform me _three hours_ _later_?” Loki hissed. Natasha stood her ground.

“Don’t you dare go out there and make a scene,” she said. “You’re in enough trouble with Fury as it is for the PR disaster of a stunt Stark pulled last week.”

“This is not remotely similar,” Loki started to push past them, but her hand shot out and caught his wrist in an iron grip.

“ _We_ will go and find him,” she said. “You stay here and try not to break anything.”

“I’m sure he’s fine, Loki,” Bruce said placatingly, trying for a reassuring smile. It looked more like a grimace.

“Yeah,” Clint nodded, “He probably dealt with it in two minutes flat and he’s just celebrating Christmas eve in the nearest bar.”

Loki’s hand tightened into a fist at his side.

“I hope for your sake you are correct, Barton,” he snapped, then turned on his heel and slammed the door in their faces.

Two hours later there was a knock at his door. Loki, who had been pacing for so long he was starting to wear a groove in the carpet, answered it with embarrassing speed. When it opened to reveal a cold and damp trio of Natasha, Bruce and Clint, but no Tony, his jaw tightened.

“There’s no sign of him,” Natasha said. “No sign of the monster either. There aren’t many people out tonight, and no-one saw anything. The snow’s too thick.”

Loki had already pulled the phone Stark had given him from his pocket and dialled. It rung on for far too long before finally connecting.

“Stark,” Loki said. “Where are you?” already his magic was pushing out, running along the connection between the devices to track him down.

“Loki?” Stark’s voice sounded far away, coming through crackles of static. “….surprised…still works.”

“I’m coming to find you,” Loki said. “Are you alright?”

“…fine, Loki….cold…”

The line went dead.

Loki shoved the phone back into his pocket, spared a moment to glare again at the three cold and damp Avengers, then followed the magic to where it had traced Tony.

He appeared a few feet above the surface of the water and had only a moment to realise what was happening before he’d plummeted into the icy cold. He gasped, eyes going wide as he fought to stay at the surface in the churning waves. All around was darkness, not helped by the thick snow still falling from the sky.

“Stark!” Loki shouted, the words carried on a pulse of magic, amplifying his voice. “Stark, can you hear me?”

There was no answer. Loki cursed, and started to swim. The magic had traced the phone call here, which meant he couldn’t be far. His hand brushed against something and he instinctively yanked it back. Then he realised what it was and lunged forwards, pulling Tony into his arms.

The only part of the armour he still wore was the broken remains of the helmet – and it was to that the Loki’s call had gone, to that which the magic had brought him. Loki held him up as best he could in the tossing waves. He was unconscious, icy cold to the touch and getting more so by the minute. He had to transport them back to the tower. But the cold and the snow and the water and waves and the weight of Tony in his arms were too much distraction. He couldn’t focus, couldn’t gather his thoughts to form the spell that would save them.

He had to do something, and fast, or Stark might die. And that was unacceptable.

Loki gasped in snow and water, sputtered and went under. When his head emerged again above the waves, he had changed. It was the only thing he could think of to do. And with his skin turned blue and eyes burning red, the cold of the water no longer bothered him. His mind was clear, the snow and wind nothing to him now. He pulled Tony tighter against his chest, and _shifted_ , side-stepping through reality.

They landed on the med-bay floor with a swirl of snow and a shower of seawater. Loki didn’t call for light, he didn’t need it right now. He rolled Stark onto his back, straddling him and pressing both hands to his chest. His heart was still beating, the arc reactor still glowed. He was alive but cold, oh, so very cold. Loki had never really tried using any of his Jotun abilities in this manner before but damned if he wasn’t going to try now.

He closed his eyes and pulled the cold towards him, drawing the ice away into a body that could survive it. Magic swirled around his hands, and if he had looked he would have seen that the usual green and gold was now blue and white, an icy glow that spread across the unconscious human below him. Beneath his palms he felt Tony’s heartbeat strengthen, could feel warmth returning to his body. Loki at last opened his eyes and at the same time Tony gasped into wakefulness, spitting out water, coughing hard.

“Loki?” he croaked out. Loki scrambled away from him, letting him sit up and frantically pulling the glamour back over his body. It covered him slowly, too slowly. Loki leaned further away, hoping for the darkness to hide him as his appearance shifted. Tony blinked and coughed again.

“Where am I?”

“The medical bay of the Avengers tower,” Loki said softly. He didn’t dare move closer – how much had Stark seen? How much of his skin was still that foul blue, what colour were his eyes?

“I’m not dead?”

Loki shook his head. Tony started to get to his feet, faltered. Loki had darted forwards to catch him almost before realising he’d moved. His heart skipped a beat when he saw his hands were still faintly blue, that the Jotun markings on them were still visible. Then Tony was leaning against him and his hands were back to normal and he sighed.

“One of these days, Stark, you will learn to value your life a little more,” he murmured, pressing his lips to the top of Tony’s head.

“There was a monster. Someone had to fight it.” Tony’s arms were around him now, and he was so _warm_ , so blessedly _warm_ and _alive_ and _safe_. Tony pulled away a little, looking up into Loki’s face. “Your lips are blue,” he said. Loki’s spine stiffened.

“I…” he started.

“C’mere.” Tony cut him off, and stretched up to kiss him. When he pulled away, he was smiling. “That’s better. Now, what time is it? JARVIS?”

“ _Midnight, sir,”_ the computerised voice said. Tony nodded, like it had confirmed something he already knew.

“In that case, Merry Christmas, Loki,” he said, “Thanks for saving my life.”

“You…are welcome…” Loki said quietly, as Tony rested his head against his chest. He closed his eyes and wrapped his arms around the human. At that moment, nothing else mattered. Stark was alive and well and still here, with him. He let his eyes fall closed.

“Merry Christmas, Stark.”

 

\----------------

 

**Part the Fourth**

_Prompt: “we were playing in the snow and you suddenly tackled me to the ground and now…we’re just…staring… at each other…”_

Possibly sparring on the roof in the snow on Christmas morning wasn’t the _safest_ idea any of them had ever had, but it was absolutely one of the most entertaining. Snowballs flew every which way, and Tony’s face had already gone numb on most of one side from getting hit so much.

“There are other targets on this roof, Barton!” he yelled, after another one clocked him in the jaw. He flung one of his own back, missing by a wide margin. Barton cackled like a maniac and darted away to gather more ammo. “I’m using your present for target practice!”

Barton flipped him off and Tony ducked to avoid a barrage from Natasha, who had popped up from behind the snow barrier she and Clint had made shortly after arriving on the roof. Typical assassins, fighting from cover.

“ _Put me down!”_ Tony heard a familiar voice yell, and turned to see Thor lifting Loki over his shoulders. A moment later Loki had been dunked headfirst into a snowbank, legs kicking wildly in the air as he struggled to free himself. When he finally emerged, covered in snow and scowling, Thor bellowed with laughter until his brother hurled a magically enhanced wave of snow at him, knocking him flat on his ass.

Steve and Bruce had been wrestling off to the side somewhere, last time Tony had checked. They’d apparently gotten bored with that though, because now they appeared to be making snow angels and giggling. Tony hugged his arms to his chest and smiled to himself. This was good. This was better than good, this was actually peaceful. No aliens, demons, monsters or supervillains in sight. Just friends on Christmas morning, getting to enjoy the snow and forget their responsibilities for a while.

“Look out!”

Tony snapped his head round just in time to see Loki running at him before he was tackled to the ground. He hit the snow, air leaving his lungs in a _whoosh_. Over his head a smattering of snowballs shot past, and he heard Clint and Natasha groan in disappointment. He looked up at Loki, balancing on his hands above him. He was grinning, hair in snow-covered disarray, eyes bright.

“Thanks for the save,” Tony managed, once he’d gotten some of his breath back. Loki said nothing, just stared at him. His grin had faded to a softer smile now, and he tilted his head to the side.

“What?” Tony asked, feeling his face grow hot. “Something on my face?”

“No, I just…” Loki shook his head as if to clear it. “I’m glad you’re still alive.”

Despite the snow, Tony felt warmth bloom in his chest. He reached up and pulled Loki in for a kiss, tasting snow. Loki’s tongue pressed into his mouth and he groaned, drawing him in closer.

“Cut it out!” someone yelled, and the next thing they knew the two of them were being pelted with snow from all sides. Without breaking the kiss, Loki threw up a shield and all around them snow burst in puffs of white powder, glittering with green and golden flecks of magic.

“Beautiful,” Tony said, when he saw it.

“Yes,” Loki said, and kissed his forehead. Again, that warmth flared in Tony’s chest, and he wrapped his arms around Loki’s waist.

“Let’s go somewhere warmer,” he said. Loki smiled.

“And prance around naked?”

“You took the words right out of my mouth.”

Magic shimmered, flared, and they were gone. Seconds later a flurry of snowballs smashed into the ground where they’d been. Clint swore.

“How come I never get to have sex with a god for Christmas?”

Thor laid a hand on his shoulder.

“Because you never put it on your list.”

**Author's Note:**

> Extra fic! From me! What is this madness? What can I say, all the secret santa stuff that filled the frostiron tag on tumblr lately inspired me, and so you have these fluffy excuses for bonus fic.


End file.
